


Ghosts in the Mansion Walls

by Fudgyokra



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Brotherly Bonding, Conversations, Daddy Issues, Err...sort of, Friendship, Gen, Heavy Angst, Identity Issues, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Statutory, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Life Discussions, M/M, Past Sexual Abuse, Past Underage, Poor Life Choices, Pseudo-Incest, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-26 21:53:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12067695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fudgyokra/pseuds/Fudgyokra
Summary: So, this is what it felt like to have your world come crumbling down around you, he thought.





	Ghosts in the Mansion Walls

Bruce had always warned him not to prowl around the mansion at night—he might not like what he found, and all such predictable warnings made in tandem with empty threats of punishment, should he go against his father figure’s word. As a child, he seldom listened. As an adult, he _never_ did.

It was nearly five in the morning when Dick stopped by to visit and was let in by Alfred, always the early-riser of the family. His guess, flavored by experience, was that the Batman’s duty would have been finished for the night, yet Bruce would still be awake, possibly tinkering away at something down in the cave. Since he was in the neighborhood, he figured he might as well pay him and the new Boy Wonder a visit.

All right, _new_ wasn’t the best word. In fact, Dick had met Jason Todd a couple of times since the latter assumed the vessel of Robin-hood ( _ha ha_ , Jason had said, unenthused). They didn’t quite get along, but that was due to a general distaste of people on Jason’s part. With a wry grin, Dick had told him he’d get along very well with Bruce, if that were the case.

The cave was dimly-lit by spotlights, each of them sending ripples of gold skittering across the water in which the Bat-skis sat, shiny and new-looking, as Dick always remembered them. The Bat had just gotten back, then, if the water was still settling.

With a broad smile, Dick raced up the steps to the main level, pausing at the top with a hitch in his throat when he heard grunts of exertion coming from the computer area. Before he could think better of it, he pushed the hanging curtain to the side just a bit and took a tentative step onto the platform. His lips were shaped as if to call out, but the sight of the Batman sans utility belt, with his pants riding low on his hips, hit him with blinding force. The man was facing away, his arms stretched out in front of him, hands on the desk and hips jerking forward in a way that could only mean incrimination, but Dick’s mind was too busy working through the buzzing-wire sound of panic to remind him to look away.

He’d lived through explosions and shootings, through vicious punches and flying kicks to the gut, and through the death of his biological parents, but it was the image of pale legs wound around Bruce’s waist, with pointed green shoes pressed against his back, that wounded Dick with the sharpest blow he’d ever felt.

So, this is what it felt like to have your world come crumbling down around you, he thought. For a long moment, all he did was stare with mouth agape at Bruce’s rutting form. He listened to the voice he’d become accustomed to over the years, mumbling things that could have been sweet nothings in between labored breaths. Riding on the tail end of something he’d said that Dick didn’t catch was Jason’s voice, much louder, grounding out expletives tagged by a throaty groan that made Dick’s pupils shrink to pinpoints.

He let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, and the sound of it, gentle though it might have been, was enough to stop Bruce dead in his tracks. “Dick,” he said, voice suddenly unrecognizable.

There had to be something else coming, but he didn’t want to stick around to find out what it was. Caught in an emotional landslide, trapped somewhere between being horrified and being angry, he hopped more than walked down the stairs, sprinting right over the grate and hopping onto the first jet ski he saw. With a twist of his hand, just like it always had, the exit door unlatched and lifted the moment the engine roared to life.

He thought he heard someone calling after him, but he didn’t pay it any attention. By the time either of them could make themselves decent, he thought (which brought a snarl to his face), he would be long gone, anyway.

It took a while before he heard someone following him through the waves, but he wasn’t surprised. He should've known Bruce would come after him. It was hard to think of him as the same man he’d always known, though, and something about picturing him in the position Dick had just caught him in made him feel strangely betrayed.

He docked and hopped out onto the sand, poised to run. If Bruce wanted to catch him that badly, then he could chase him first. Before he could take a step, though, Jason’s voice caught his attention. “Dick, wait,” he said, like he was already tired of the conversation that hadn’t yet begun.

“He sent _you_ ,” Dick said, not like a question.

Jason answered anyway. “Yeah. He knew you’d be pissed at him.”

“Is that so?” Dick turned to face him, cringing at the pink flush still glaringly obvious on his pale face. “Well, he’s right,” he said, aiming a scowl at him that was really meant for Bruce, who apparently couldn’t be bothered to show up.

“Dick, it’s not his fault. I came onto _him_.”

The sneer minimized itself to a tight frown, and his eyes narrowed. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

Jason rolled his eyes, the brat. “Uh, yeah?”

“What about that is supposed to make me forget I just caught my father fucking a seventeen-year-old?”

“I’m eighteen!” Jason rebuked.

“That’s not the point!” Dick put a hand to his face and used the other one to gesticulate wildly. “You’re—you’re supposed to be his—his _son_ ,” he stammered, taking his hand away long enough to regard the other with a look that made Jason furrow his brows. “Aren’t you?” he finished weakly, voice dropping to something infinitely more tired, more hurt.

Jason set his mouth in a line. “Fuck,” he muttered, “he was afraid you might be like that.”

“Be like what?” Dick asked. His tone and eyes both suddenly reanimated with fury.

Jason’s expression was hard to interpret. For a minute, he just looked at him, surveying from bottom to top like he was taking stock. Then, finally, he answered, but not in the way Dick wanted to hear. “He was afraid you’d be like _this_. Like you’re being now.”

“What does that mean?” Dick persisted, putting a leveraging hand on Jason’s shoulder that he immediately jerked away from.

He glanced around as though he were afraid someone would come within eavesdropping distance, which wasn’t likely, given their position. To be fair, Dick supposed, he’d probably thought the cave was safe from potential onlookers, too. He gestured to the mossy hill a few feet away. “I gotta be honest with you,” he started, taking a seat himself when Dick didn’t move. “When we started, uh…”

Dick merely stewed in his anger while Jason looked at him pointedly. “I got it,” he muttered.

“Yeah, well, when we starting doing _that_ , I could tell he felt pretty guilty about it.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Dick interjected.

“Are you gonna listen to me or not?” Jason asked, punctuating the question with a hefty sigh.

Dick snapped, his tone harsher than he’d meant for it to be. “Why should I?” There was a stubborn pause. After offering a sigh himself, he apologized. “I don’t mean to take it out on you. It’s just a lot to take in.”

Jason’s lips curled into an impish smile. “You’re telling me.”

Dick looked down at him with teeth bared. “Are you always such a huge fucking waste of breath?” he cried, throwing his arms out to the sides. It took a second for his brain to catch up with his mouth, and by then he noticed that Jason was looking at the ground, shuffling the toe of his boot into the dirt. “I’m—God, Jason, I didn’t mean that.” He licked his lips and cast his eyes skyward. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Jason looked up at him again and said, “I think I get it.”

Hesitantly, Dick sat beside him. “Really? Then could you explain it to me?” With a soft huff, he dragged his knees to his chest and looped his arms around them. “’Cause I don’t have a damn clue.”

“I… Listen, don’t hate me, man, but I think you do. I mean, if Bruce can tell, there’s no way you can’t. He’s kinda thick-headed when it comes to that stuff, y’know?”

Dick _did_ know. Maybe it wasn’t a perfectly clear explanation, but he had an inkling. For a long time, they sat in silence while Dick thought back to his teenage years, plagued by all the identity issues, the trauma, and the lack of emotional support. He remembered Bruce picking him up to hug him, once, squeezing him tight as they both laughed victoriously in remembrance of the night’s latest escapade. Then, past it all, he thought of Slade Wilson.

The moment he pictured that smug fucking face, he nearly lost it. Jason must have noticed the tight-lipped, vacant look overtake him, because he gently shook him by the shoulder to bring him back to the present. “Dude, you all right?” he asked, sounding alarmed. Dick was surprised by the amount of concern with which he looked at him just then, brows raised and mouth curled into a frown.

“I’m okay. I was thinking of…Bruce.” It was half the truth, anyway.

“You didn’t strike me as the nostalgic type,” Jason commented, smiling knowingly.

Dick looked at him, then redirected his gaze out at the water. “There was…a man,” he said softly. “I was fourteen years old.”

Jason’s face went blank. Slowly, he retracted his hand from Dick’s shoulder, and Dick looked back to find that his eyes were intently focused, thick brows drawn together above them. He had to exhale a single, distressed breath and slouch to disconnect the look the other was giving him, feeling abruptly and weirdly like a hanged man about to confess a crime. “But I wanted it so badly,” he finished, waiting for his perdition.

“You were fourteen,” Jason said, and Dick could feel him shift to better face him. “Who cares if you wanted to? That’s still—”

“I know,” he interrupted, picking his head up again. He sighed through his nose this time and repeated in a lower voice, “I know.” In his head, he saw his shoes—those goddamned little, green shoes—pressed hard into a bare back; his arms above his head, wrists caught by a gloved hand. His internal grimace must have made it onto his face, because Jason commented. “His name was Slade,” he explained, leaning back against the bluff behind them to stare somewhere in the dark sky, or perhaps in the water. Even he wasn’t sure, for all the trouble his brain was going through to recount the events.

“Slade… _Wilson_?” Jason asked.

Dick smiled without humor. “Oh, yeah, you’re Boy Wonder now, huh? Guess you know all about him, then.”

“Deathstroke?” Jason’s voice had become incredulous in five quick seconds. “You’re kidding! I’m surprised you even survived that, man.” He grinned, showing all his teeth in a boyish way that reminded Dick a little of himself from years past. It wasn’t very comforting in the context, but he made himself smile back, anyway.

“Honestly, I am too. Not because of anything weird,” he said with something akin to a snort escaping, “but because he really hated my guts. We—the Titans and I—used to fight him all the time. He was a tough SOB, I’ll give him that.”

“And you _slept_ with him,” Jason said flatly. “Holy shit. Kicks _my_ record’s ass.”

Dick scowled. “Not funny.”

“Just trying to lighten the mood,” Jason muttered.

To that, he said nothing. “I had some issues growing up,” he admitted, changing the subject.

“Don’t we all,” Jason said in a wistful way that made Dick wonder if he’d meant to say it aloud.

“I was caught up in this brilliant, exciting life of catching crooks and bashing skulls. I lived in a goddamn _mansion_ , for Christ’s sake. Everything was picture-perfect except for one thing.” Here, he held his hands up to mimic a picture frame, and Jason looked on with interest. “I had a dad, sort of, but he _wasn’t_ my dad, and he certainly didn’t treat me like his son. I had problems in those formative years processing emotions and, um, urges.” Jason snorted at that, which Dick duly ignored. “Of course, I was his pseudo-son, so no luck there. I…I might have snuck into his room sometimes to wake him, or to bring him breakfast, just so I could have an excuse to climb on top of him. He always seemed to like that. Y’know, in the way a father enjoys the company of his stupid, annoying, little brat of a _child_.”

The way his voice turned venomous made Jason lift his brows again. “That’s rough,” he mumbled, now joining him in looking out over the water. “But he was…you were… That was different,” he managed to get out, running a hand through his hair in exasperation. “I’m an adult—”

“Barely,” Dick muttered, forcing Jason to face him again with a look of unbridled annoyance.

“I _am_ , and I expect you to fuckin’ treat me like one, asshole.”

There was a tense second of silence, then Dick took a deep breath and let it out in succession. “I know,” he said, eventually. “I considered myself an adult by the time I was thirteen. I thought I could handle anything. I mean, I saved Gotham on a daily basis, didn’t I? I juggled school, work, and Bruce’s emotional constipation. I always felt like I…” He made a useless gesture in the air, then collected the hand into a fist, looking so defeated that Jason had to simmer down. “I felt like I _deserved_ something for it all.”

“Oh,” Jason all but whispered, feeling the words hit him in a strangely familiar place. “I see.”

“I went to Slade.” Dick grit his teeth. “It was a desperate call to be treated like a grown-up, made by…well, by a child. The rat bastard answered that call, sure, but did I ever feel better because of that? Did I ever feel like a man?”

Jason remained silent, even when Dick cast a lost look at him. Here he was, spiraling toward thirty years old and looking for answers in places he knew he shouldn’t. In a way, it felt like the world was ending all over again. In a different way, though, it made him feel just a bit better.

He looked out at the horizon, where the sun was beginning to peak its glowing head out. “I don’t blame Bruce,” he admitted. “I can’t. Sure, he wasn’t always the most emotionally-available person, but it wasn’t his fault he had to deal with an orphaned teenager coming on to him all the damn time.”

“If he’d treated you like a son, though…” Jason supplied, watching the other man’s shoulders slump.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess there’s that. I can’t blame him for that, either.”

“I can,” Jason replied. It was succinct and non-malicious, but it was enough. Without warning, tears welled in Dick’s eyes, sending him curling in on himself with shuddering force.

“I think he just does it because he feels bad for me,” Jason said, putting a hand on Dick’s back. “Because he felt bad for _you_. I think one day he’ll realize this wasn’t the best way of handling it…because I’m starting to realize it, too,” he said, blowing out a soft puff of air. “Jesus, we’re screwed up.”

Despite himself, Dick had to laugh. He sat up straight and wiped tears away with the heel of his palm, caught up in a flurry of laughter that eventually spread to Jason, too. For an undetermined stretch of time, they just sat there and laughed, arms around each other’s quaking shoulders while the sun rose calmly in the distance.

“Hey,” Dick began after he’d caught his breath, “listen, Jason. I know we didn’t really get off on the right foot, but I want you to know I’m pretty fond of you.”

“Yeah, yeah… And I don’t hate you,” Jason returned, offering a small, honest smile seconds before it twisted into a gaping yawn.

“Oh, no,” Dick said, standing and offering his hand, which Jason grudgingly took. “I’m sorry about all this. I guess you oughta get back, eh?”

To his surprise, Jason gave his hand a reassuring squeeze before letting it drop. “I’ll take the watercrafts back myself. You go.”

“Are you sure?” Dick asked, casting uncertain eyes on the cave entrance across the way.

“I’m sure.” Jason was already heading for the jet ski with which he’d tailed Dick all the way out there, but the latter wasn’t sure how he felt about ditching Bruce, even after everything that had transpired. The younger man, amid his fiddling with the gears, looked back at him when he heard no movement. “Get lost,” he said with a fond smile, coupled with a less fond gesture provided by his middle finger. “I’ll tell him you’re not mad, but you need some time to cool off.”

“Thanks,” Dick said, doing his best to smile back.

Jason wrangled the rope from the storage compartment. “Hey, Dick?” he asked suddenly, stilling and regarding him with a crooked smirk.

“Yeah?”

“You’re always welcome at the mansion, if you want to be there. I know Bruce would say the same.”

 “Thank you. It means a lot,” he responded, spirits lifting a fraction. He could make it through this, he realized. Hard though it may be, he felt that he could move forward. What he’d really needed was to let it out, he guessed, and find unexpected companionship with one Jason Todd.

“See ya around,” Jason said.

“See you,” Dick agreed.

He watched in silence as Jason worked the rope around the skis and boarded his own with a huff of accomplishment. Then, just before the younger man had the chance to look back at the shore, Dick turned around to begin one solitary, very meditative journey home.


End file.
